Buying Happiness

Everyone has heard the saying, "Money can't buy happiness". Kids have heard this from their parents when the parents try to prove the point that salary isn't the reason they should choose a career. Kids are told that relationships and people skills will "buy happiness". Yes, most happy people would say that they have strong and lasting relationships, but this is not the only pathway to happiness. Michael Norton describes in his Ted Talk that money actually can buy happiness. The only problem is that people aren't spending their money in the right way.

When discussing this debate with others, proponents of the idea that money can buy happiness always ask me if I've ever seen an unhappy person on a jet ski, if I've ever seen an unhappy person on a four wheeler, or if I've seen an unhappy person buying a yacht. I respond with the obvious answer of, "No", and the other person thinks they have won the argument. They are not wrong, doing rich things is fun. But I then point out the fact to them that all of these things involve spending money on themselves. The first thought that comes to someone that has come upon a sum of money is what they can spend it on to help them. In other words, they only think about spending money on themselves and not others. They think that spending money on themselves will make them happy. The funny thing is that spending money on others will generally make them happier than if they spend it on themselves. Don't get me wrong, spending money on yourself or others can make one happy, but more happiness comes from spending money on others.

This argument is very prevalent around the time of Christmas. Christmas is the largest shopping time of the year. The shopping season starts on Black Friday for the crazy and motivated ones, and ends on Christmas Eve for myself and a lot of other men in this world. It is a tradition for my dad and me to do a large part of our Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. The crowds are down and most of the shoppers are people just like us. It's great! Anyways, Christmas is my favorite time of the year not because of all the gifts that I receive, but the joy I get when buying a gift for someone else and watching their reaction when they open it.

 I'm not a picky person when people ask me what I want for a gift. I usually just tell them that anything is good with me. For some odd reason, people really, really do not like it when I tell them this. Personally, I love it when someone tells me that anything will do. Not because I could pick out anything and have them be happy, but because it presents a challenge for me. I have to find a creative gift for that person that will make them smile. It makes me really think about what that person would want and who that person really is. I feel like I get to know them better without even talking to them. I like spending my money on others in a creative way. It is fun and exciting!

Spending money on myself only allows myself to be happy, but spending money on others myself to be happy for the person I bought the gift for, and also for the person receiving the gift to be happy. Christmas should be the season of giving, not the season of receiving.

This story pretty much sums up true happiness.

Once a group of 50 people was attending a seminar. Suddenly the speaker stopped and started giving each one a balloon. Each one was asked to write his/her name on it using a marker pen. Then all the balloons were collected and put in another room. Now these delegates were left in that room and asked to find the balloon which had their name written, within 5 minutes. Everyone was frantically searching for their name, colliding with each other, pushing around others and there was utter chaos. At the end of 5 minutes no one could find their own balloon. Now each one was asked to randomly collect a balloon and give it to the person whose name was written on it. Within minutes everyone had their own balloon.The speaker began— Exactly this is happening in our lives. Everyone is frantically looking for happiness all around, not knowing where it is. Our happiness lies in the happiness of other people. Give them their happiness, you will get your own happiness.

Christmas is quickly approaching. First be thankful for what you have. Thanksgiving is a holiday too and comes BEFORE Christmas. And second, try focusing your energy on giving this year. You may just end up a happier person. 

The Shadow Scholar

Students pay others thousands of dollars each year to write their papers. Yes, there is a student out there who has paid someone $2,000 to write a 40 page paper for them. The writers all work for an online company that generates tens of thousands of dollars a year. Each writer is capable of producing anywhere from 20 to 40 pages a day in subjects that they don't have a degree in.  I have never heard of this business, but it is very well known and popular business to some students. 

Who in their right mind would pay large amounts of money for another person to write a paper for them? I'm already paying thousands of dollars just to attend college, It wouldn't even cross my mind to pay someone money to write a paper for me. So then what group of people pays for papers? The easiest and most obvious answer are the extremely rich  and lazy students. The other not so obvious answers are the students who don't speak English very well, and the students whose communication skills are sub-par. 

The article makes a point that colleges are failing the students who cannot communicate and the ESL. Yet, colleges are succeeding the lazy rich kids. I totally agree. The lazy rich kids are usually business majors that are destined to run a company. At a company, they will invest their money to better their company. The same idea applies for college where they are investing their money to get a better grade. The communication deficient and the ESL are expected to know English the day they step on campus. They must master English to get a degree, so they see that paying others for their papers is the easiest way to get a degree. In the end, they might get the degree, but won't be prepared for the job that they get out of college. 

These writers are unknown to the world, no one knows who they are. But they are out there, writing essays, lab reports, and even graduate thesis. It's sad to say, but even that new young doctor you just started seeing could have had one of his/hers paper written by someone else.